women_in_stemfandomcom-20200213-history
Perceptions of Women in Our World
The Woman's Epidermal Schema Author Radhika Mohanram discusses the idea of identity in her article, "Black Body". Many philosophers have been concerned with the idea of a “personal identity” for centuries. John Locke believes that identity includes a person’s mind and body in time. While Sigmund Freud considered identity as the mind controlling the body. Frantz Fanon’s definition of identity could be seen in his vision of the epidermal schema. (Mohanram, 1999) This being the skin that someone is in works to define their identity. All of these thoughts work together to create a better interpretation of what is included in identity. Each person has a separate, specific identity. However, groups of people can share a similar epidermal schema or a "general type" based on their epidermal appearance. This happens to be the case for women. In our world, women are seen mothers, sisters, and friends. In addition to these roles, women should also been seen as educated and investigative. Social Ordering and Social Constructions The social ordering of women can be seen in Jane Lawerence's article, "The Indian Health Service and the Sterilization of Native American Women". This article discusses how Native American women were forced and tricked into being sterilized so that they could no longer produce children. (Lawerence, 2000) The people behind this deceit and injustice were westerners that called themselves the Indian Health Service. Similar to the Winona Duke's article " Akwesasne: Mohawk Mother’s Milk and PCB’s", where big companies ran by men, spilled toxic pollutants into rivers which poisoned the breast milk of Native American mothers. (Duke, 1999) These western men thought that it was in there best interest to decide the welfare of these women's children. In this instance, these men deemed themselves as above these women like some men do today in the career world and familal systems. The social construction of women within the media has greatly affected women of the western world and has distorted the images of non-western women. These constructs are found in many different types of media outlets, such as the National Geographic. “In The Color of Sex: Post War Photographic Histories of Race and Gender” by Lutz and Collins, the authors shed light on this topic by talking about the social construction of third world women in the National geographic franchise, “Research on the visual representation of women makes clear that female images are abundant in some domains (advertising) and virtually absent in others...The invisibility extends much further for women of color(Lutz and Collins, 1990). Women identities are constantly and continuously being constructed in ways that limit their abilities to see themselves in roles outside of social constructions. Category Analysis of Women Another feminist scholar that discusses how women are perceived is Chandra Mohanty. Mohanty explains how non-western women of all backgrounds are viewed as having the same social and political issues. Mohanty states: “in any given piece of feminist analysis women are characterized as a singular group on the basis of a shared oppression”(Mohanty 65). This is an example of how women become homogeneously grouped through feminist writing. When women are homogeneously grouped, there is no consideration to the differences in their personal, social, and cultural reality.This can also be said about 'third world women' who either are or trying to be in the world of science. If they are continuously being discussed in a belittling, victimized, disastrous manner, due to their differences from westerners, this can then lead to a perception of these women being non-existent or incompetent in educational and career STEM fields. (See "Microsoft Imagine Cup" under International Accounts of Women in Stem Careers )